Crimson Cove

by Eden Butler

  My Guise charm? I thought, counting on his spell to keep our silent communication open.

  You were sleeping. It wore itself out.

  I looked around in a panic. We were alone by the dying fire; Hamill was gone and Trevor and Ethan were missing as well.

  I sent them back, except Hamill. He’s keeping watch on the other side of that tree line.

  My skin was flush and clammy despite the cool temperatures and, when I sat up, pulling Bane’s hand off my mouth, that cool sensation only intensified. The way he watched me, how careful he was not to say or think anything that would give himself away, felt a little intimidating. I could not pretend to maintain control like he could. Bane was the real power in the woods and I felt like a pathetic apprentice waiting for instruction.

  Bane worked his own charm from his neck, holding it tight between his large fingers but I could not make out what spell he twisted to invoke it. Magic is personal and intensely private, and most wizards and witches keep their spells to themselves. Seeing Bane hold something as mundane, as simple as a charm without any real fear of exposure to me felt incredibly intimate. With the charm twisted and the muzzle of magic once again concealing us, Bane looked down at me, a half smile reminding me that he could still read my emotions, hear my thoughts.

  “It is private,” he said, snapping the fire back to life. “Magic, charms, they don’t work if we keep ourselves from its power. The lines want us.” He closed his eyes and that half smile became wider. “They want us to crave them, but they need us as much as we need them. Light and dark, Jani. We feed off of each other. It’s symbiotic. It’s a relationship. Of course it’s private.”

  “You don’t hide it.” Sitting up fully, I pulled my arms around my legs, resting my chin on my knees because if I didn’t hold myself tight, I was worried that I’d want him instead.

  “Didn’t you twist your charm in front of Ethan and Trevor and, God, Hamill too?”

  “Invoking the charm is nothing. Besides, they weren’t paying attention to me.”

  “But you were,” he said, waving his charm at me as he looped it over his head. “Just now when I invoked it, you listened.”

  Bane pressed his lips together. He didn’t need to explain further. I caught his meaning. Common decency dictated that I look away when a wizard works a charm. It’s just good manners, but hell, I was lower coven. He shouldn’t have expected me to behave. By the quick smile Bane gave me, I remembered he could hear my thoughts.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, shrugging.

  “No, you’re not, Jani.”

  And I wasn’t. Why would I be? My eyes ached for him, wanting to draw in everything I could about him. See all the things I’d missed over the years, remember each detail to keep inside my head when this job was done and it was time again for me to walk away.

  At that thought, Bane stretched his shoulders tight and shuffled his boot heel into the ground.

  “You’re just going to run again?”

  “I didn’t run, I escaped.”

  He stood in front of me, hands held in tight fists at his side and that expression was stern, confident. “What are you hiding from me?”

  Just then, I could have told him. I wanted to tell him. I’d have risked his anger, the betrayal he’d feel just to have him know it was me, the lower coven witch whose father dealt with the dirty work in the Cove, that had made a claim on him. And I had let him claim me, back in that classroom ten years ago. But now was not the time. In fact, it never would be the time.

  “I have to know.” His fists tightened further but I managed not to react, other than to stand and step away from him.

  “It won’t matter soon enough. We find the Elam and you’ll be married.”

  He didn’t seem surprised that I knew what his uncle planned, or shocked or even worried. Bane was stoic again, and I told him all he deserved to hear.

  “I left the Cove because I had to.”

  “Because of me?” Why did he have to seem so damn eager for the truth? What was the point? Why the hell did he enjoy torturing us both so surely?

  “Because it was the only way for me to survive.”

  Bane didn’t answer and that restraint he held onto so tightly didn’t waver in the least as he stepped closer, ignoring my small protest when he touched my face. “Yes, but you forgot the people left behind to survive you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Thunder woke me, but that wasn’t the scariest sound I heard all night.

  That came later.

  What was more chilling was that the Elam had completely vanished from me. The forest grew light, the night ended and as the sun rose and the presence of Bane’s energy left the camp, Hamill’s angry, indifferent verve replaced it.

  Then, the thunder. It sounded like the slap of sheet metal, rattled by the shudder of strong fists. It wasn’t the sound of weather or the natural vibration wind and rain make together in a storm. This thunder was transfixed, buzzed like the hum of the ley lines, and when a third and fourth clap of thunder sounded again, I knew it was a spell.

  “They’re tracking you down,” Hamill said, slipping from the hollow of the still shadowy woods as he smoked.

  Above us, the swirl of gray and blue crowded in the clouds, pinching out the sunlight to turn the sky black. “Dark wishes.” It was something my father called dark magic made with ill intent. “It’s a special kind of rotten wizard that will trap one of their own in a spell like this.” A quick nod at the biggest, darkest cloud and the whites of Hamill’s eyes stuck out among the shadows and smoke he hid in. “My father says this type of spell work is the worst, the thickest of bad magic. It requires pain and blood to work.”

  “Like the magic used to spell Bane and grab the Elam.”

  Hamill’s question made me jerk my attention back to him. There was a hint of something in his voice, some odd amusement in his question that made me wonder if he had other motives for asking it. “Exactly like that.” That was not merely curiosity.

  “But why would they want you? Why not try to take out Bane?”

  It should have been obvious. He should have known but as the shifter took a drag from his cigarette and let the smoke billow over his head to circle up into the dark trees, I thought, maybe, his was a game that needed playing. For a bit.

  “Because I’m the one the Elam is calling. I’m the only one that can find it.”

  When Hamill only stared at me, I focused on the sky and the blistering wind that danced above us. “They don’t want me to find it. They think using this spell will somehow show them where I am. The best way to keep the Elam out of our hands is to keep it from being discovered.”

  “You didn’t steal it.”

  I shot a glance at Hamill, frowning. “Of course I didn’t. How could I?”

  “And you didn’t touch Wyatt.” I didn’t bother answering. Hamill stepped completely out of the shadows, like the slow reveal of a wound being unwrapped and when my gaze landed on his face, the colored complexion of his skin, I immediately stood. “What?” he asked, moving his head to catch my attention when I refused to look at him.

  I’d almost forgotten about the Judas spell. Yet there it was, right on Hamill’s face—a sharp, jagged line smooth against his cheek, running the length of his neck. He wouldn’t know it was there, but I could see it plain as day.

  “What’s that look?”

  There was nothing to fear, other than the shifter. The forest gave me an advantage. Hamill was a were in his primal self. He knew the woods, but this was the Cove. This was the miles upon miles of terrain my siblings and I had trained to hunt in, to gather and protect along with the other lower covens. It was our calling to know and defend Grant territory. Hamill might be a natural tracker, but I was an earth witch standing on familiar ground. He would not catch me.

  “Where’s Bane?” I’d need to access what small reserves of subtlety I had.

  “Hunting shelter. Some of his folk have cabins deep in the woods. When he saw the storm rising, he
went out to find the nearest one. Said he’d be back within the hour.”

  Hamill watched me, as I sidestepped around the camp, my own eyes locked and focused on even the slightest movements he made. “Don’t get any ideas,” he said, glowering at me as though I were rotten. “Bane will have the final say in what to do with you.”

  “What?”

  “You and your family.” Hamill’s jaw moved as he gritted his teeth. “If I could, I’d rip you all to pieces.”

  A swift, dismissive nod and I bolted, zipping away from the camp while Hamill watched open mouthed, unsuspecting and likely confused about my reaction. My father taught me to run and that’s exactly what I did. But I’d acted first, analyzed second, realizing embarrassingly late that I had never seen Hamill in full light. Perhaps that was not the mark of the Judas spell after all.

  But as I ran from the shifter and that brewing storm, I realized that making my way on my own was for the best. Bane couldn’t help me, not with the Elam. Hamill certainly couldn’t, and so I continued, running through the forest because I needed to. The air, the earth, the rough landscape below my feet—was all a part of the Cove, a part of what made me who I was. All that sensation, all that earthy necessity that combined inside me, in the natural state of who I was. A Crimson Cove witch searching for a lost object.

  Just then, the lightening came, cracking against the darkened sky, illuminating all around me. The low, sprawling hills. The wide stretch of wood and brambles, the slinking, curious eyes of a wild boar that investigated me as I slipped through the woods.

  And just when I started to doubt my flight, to suspect it had been hopeless, stupid, to run again, to flee the danger before I could really recognize it as such, the penetrating shock of the Elam flooded me. Its power crashed into me like the lightning bolts above.

  “There.” My entire body shook as the rain poured from the sky, drumming against my body and the landscape around me. “Just there,” I repeated to no one.

  It felt like a fever, high and searing, and my fingers, my joints, ached to touch it. But the unnatural storm, this infernal spell, interfered, deflected that reach, that power from my senses, forcing me to lean against a large, wet tree and funnel all my focus, all my ability into the signature that called to me beyond the trail merely to keep it from dropping away again.

  Eyes tightened, the darkness clouded around my senses until there was nothing but the barely visible smooth curve of the Elam’s tortoise face and the turquoise sheen glinting even in the feeble sunlight behind the storm. In my mind, I held the Elam in my hands, its power blistering, burning and so intoxicating, so freeing and bright. It felt like pure electricity, some live wire of power that I wanted inside me, flowing through me. Sharper focus, I concentrated on the feel of the amulet that encased the Elam. There was a hunger inside it, I felt that clearly. It ached and pulsed; a living, breathing element that craved the ley lines. Yin to yang and it wanted that searing power. It wanted to tether it, tame it and just then, with that strong, blazing energy soaking my subconscious, understanding came to me.

  The Elam was mystical, a cord of energy and magic that craved calm and control. It wished for the symbiotic connection to something that was utterly out of control. The ley lines, the Elam, they were two sides of the same coin—one that flipped and rattled, until it finally broke. The other that molded and bent, stilled and coiled and healed.

  God how similar that felt. How ironic it seemed to me that I would be drawn to something so unlike myself. The very thing I wanted, was the one thing that would hold me back completely. Bane was the Elam seeking control, calm. I was the lines craving freedom, reach, the grasp of nothing that would hinder me.

  Above me, that mock storm brewed and despite my focus, my grip on the Elam loosened. I was so close, I felt the wave of its signature as the rain and winds whipped around me, as limbs and leaves fell and scattered, yet my subconscious hold on the Elam became tenuous, weak and when a loud, heavy crack of lightning sounded above me and the tree I leaned against shuddered with the splinter of breaking wood, that grip left me completely.

  I ran.

  I’d become the hunted, pursued by a manufactured scavenger. Every length I ran, the lightening followed, cracking, breaking loose the ground, freeing dirt and clay and bits of bark around my feet. Heart pounding, breath an uneven, labored mess, my feet moved just seconds ahead of the streaks of lighting hitting the ground behind me.

  Whoever sent the storm wanted me running. But this spell was artless. The markers of stealth and cunning were missing in the forced light of the enchantment. There was little natural appeal to it and the danger rived up too greatly. Licks of light and heat coiled together, broke across the ground, scaring me, but the damage behind was weak, ineffectual. Each ripped-asunder hole and tear in the earth quickly healed itself as soon as the attack ended. Every whip of light that came close to my limbs, that singed my hair, touched with only the small buzz of a faulty outlet.

  For a second I got distracted, watching the sky with a smile on my face, still loving the beauty in the darkness even in the false storm, just as I’d always loved stars overhead at night, but then another strike blasted and the smile left my face. Something was wrong. Somehow the threat did not seem as angry, as desperate as I originally believed. And then, because I was no longer frantic or frightened, because my thought was so mundane, the spell almost seemed to realize its own ineffectualness, and responded by amping up a level.

  “Shit!” My curse barely registered past the wet deluge above head and when the two trees behind me cracked, crashing inches from my head, I stumbled, crawling with grass stuck between my fingers and under my nails as another strike set about and yet another oak slammed close to me. “Holy shit!” Throwing up my hands too late, I knew that the block would not save me, nor would the quick flash of energy shooting from my fingertips as another tree began to fall right on top of me. I held my breath expecting pain, the sound of bone and skin breaking, but instead, all went still.

  “Jani?” My name came out in a groan, one I recognized as injury, at the least, excruciating agony at the worst.

  “Bane?” The rain still fell and the crack in the distance told me the unsophisticated spell work was dying but not dead. “Oh God, Bane, what did you do?”

  “Shit. What I always damn well do.” He felt around in the darkness, stretching toward the thick branch lying across his left leg, nearly freeing himself just as I reached him. “Minding your ass, I suppose.” A small grunt when the branch would not move any further and Bane fell back, resting an arm over his forehead. “Or trying to, any damn way.”

  “Stupid, heedless jolthead.” When I finally managed to crawl over the limbs and leaves, Bane was still trying to kick off the heavy branch with his free leg. “I never asked you to play bodyguard.”

  “You didn’t have to,” he yelled, grunting again, hitting his fists against the wet ground. “I just…”

  It was the first time I’d ever heard him sound so open and raw. Bane was not the type of wizard to loosen his guard or be blindly truthful. Especially about his motives. Hearing the difference in his tone just then completely stilled me.

  “It was just something I had to do.”

  My hands came to his chest, just as I moved next to him, not realizing how much his words impacted me. “Why?”

  “I don’t…” Bane’s breath came out slow, as though even thinking of a response was wasted effort he didn’t want to bother with. “Fuck’s sake, Jani, it’s just something I needed to do.”

  “And look where it’s got you.” I waved at his leg, fighting back my fear, my anger and the damn tears that had unexpectedly shone in my eyes, making me angrier, making me feel weak and stupid. “You’ve probably broken it.”

  “It’s not broken.” When I glared at him, Bane shook his head. “I’ve had broken bones before. This isn’t one.”

  A long grunt from my pressed lips and my gaze went around the woods, over the downed trees and toward the trail
covered now with fallen limbs and small saplings. “We should call someone.”

  “No service out here,” he said, trying to sit up. Bane swatted at my hand on his elbow before he nodded toward the branch and together we spelled the massive wood from his leg. “Besides, the real storm is coming and I’d be a sight more comfortable in the that hunting cabin just over the ridge than sitting on my ass with you looking like you want to stun me with a quick hex.”

  That was a thought, though I’d never tell him I likely couldn’t think of a hex strong enough to take him down. Bane was damn powerful.

  “I don’t want to hex you.”

  “No?” he asked, leaning on me when I reached for his hand.

  “Not yet.” He settled against my shoulder and a quick whip of pleasure ran up my spine as I caught the scent of his skin. “But I reserve the right to change my mind.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The cabin wasn’t much more than a seven hundred square foot room with a small kitchenette, a threadbare, wool rug in front of a slight stacked-stone hearth and absolutely no furniture to speak of. The floor was scraped pine, very old with loads of blotted stains where something wet, possibly bloody had spilled and had never been completely cleaned.

  The entire place smelled of wet fur, mildew and that unique stuffiness that most places take on when no one has kept the air circulating or moved around the place. It was also damn cold as well.

  Bane had enormous feet that thinned at the ankles and sparse hairs just along his big toe. His ankles were boney and slight and the one in my lap was twisted and swollen with a nasty gash rupturing the flesh. It was a bloody, filthy mess and he would not hold still long enough for me to mend it.

  “Don’t move your leg.”

  “I’m not.” Just as Bane said that, he jerked his ankle to the side, making my fingers slip up his leg, missing the large gash that exposed the bone.